I just called my Congressmember to ask him to support Rep. Nydia Velasquez's request to suspend the Jones Act (so foreign ships can bring aid to Puerto Rico) and not require Puerto Rico to match FEMA disaster relief funds (because Puerto Rico doesn't have the money). The staffer said she'd pass this along to him: she generally sympathetic to the request to help Puerto Rico after the hurricane, but I'm not sure she, or Rep. Capuano, is aware of this specific.

I heard about this on my Twitter feed, and Rep. Velasquez's press release and letter to the acting secretary of homeland security are here:

This is an informal community for chat about Yuletide, which was started up by participants and has now (2017) been passed over to mods. Official announcements are given at yuletide_admin and yuletide_admin (which has a feed at yuletide_admin_feed).

BUFFY: I can't just wait around, Will. The disk is no good to me unless you crack it soon.
ANYA: Hey! We worked really hard getting that. Xander delivered clothing.
GILES: Church approved.
BUFFY: Sorry, you guys, but we're on a clock here. Okay, Adam was at that cave so maybe he was there for a reason? I-I can--I can go back, scope it out, track him if I have to.
WILLOW: Right. And then maybe you'll get lucky and he'll still be there and he can rip your arms off for you? Buffy, you can't go back alone.
GILES: You never train with me anymore. He's gonna kick your ass.
BUFFY: Giles!
GILES: Sorry. Was it a bit honest? Terribly sorry.

Hello, friends of Spuffy! By popular demand, Round 23 of Seasonal Spuffy will take place in November. The exact dates will be specified, and signups will open in October.

BUT IN THE MEANTIME, we declare September 29-30 and October 1 to be special, themed free-for-all days!

This weekend event will begin on Friday, because, like Spike, we just can't wait... to celebrate the 20th anniversary of School Hard, first aired on September 29, 1997!

This time, we invite you to post anything you've got that's directly related to School Hard. New works are great. Previously posted works are good, too! As usual, we'll be delighted to have, in the words of Tom Lehrer, all your "murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything!" We also accept fic, all kinds of fan art, recs, meta... go wild. :) Just remember it should be School-Hard-related and Spuffy. And it shouldn't be an all-human AU... though all-penguin AUs are welcomed. The rest of the standard guidelines are here (let's ignore the part about posting dates the way Spike ignores ritual).

If you want to participate in another way, please leave feedback for our talented fan creators. :)

This three-day School Hard party will take place on Livejournal, Dreamwidth, AND tumblr. You can post on any or all of these places as you prefer. During the event, I will crosspost links on all three Seasonal Spuffy blogs, so it'll be possible to follow all the Spuffy action via any of them: here on DW, on LJ, or on tumblr(though you may have to go elsewhere to read/view the actual content). I will link to Dreamwidth posts from tumblr and Livejournal when I can, but I'll give you at least an half hour first in case you want to repost or link them yourself.TO PARTICIPATE ON DREAMWIDTH, simply post to this community. I have experimentally smashed removed entry moderation, so you won't have to wait for the post to be approved. In turn, I made it so you do have to join the community first. I hope that won't be a difficulty.

To help keep our comm organized and beautiful, we've got some header and tagging guidelines. These work the same way as on Livejournal.

The idea here is to organize a gift exchange designed for Marvel and its many branched runs, authors, related and unrelated fandoms. The idea is to include the X-Men side and the Avengers side and every other side that non-Marvel fans don't realize is Marvel. The idea is to include any timeline you want, any world you want, any character you want, so long as it's Marvel.

McCain's a no, Susan Collins is finding it "very difficult" to envision voting for the bill, and others are dithering or have expressed concern. But as I understand it you need three Republican "no" votes to stop Pence from tie-breaking, and Trump and co. are leaning hard on people to fall in line.

Fics written for the purpose of re-qualifying for Yuletide must be posted before signing up to Yuletide 2017 (ie, before October 9 and ideally before October 1). You have two weeks! They must also be over 1,000 words and written to a previous Yuletide prompt. The fandom in which they are written must still be small enough to qualify for Yuletide (in brief: there are fewer than 1,000 fics each (that are over 1,000 words, in English, and complete) when adding the total fics on AO3 and ff.net).

One week and six days, rather. Time is certainly passing quickly. (See the countdown here.) All pinch hits are currently claimed, and you all have done a spectacular job staying on top of those, so thank you (and thank you, withinadream), but keep watching for more, just in case. Beta readers are always appreciated, too, and keep your eyeballs on those Dear Creator letters. Not quite to the home stretch yet, but ... soon, soon!

The focus for action this week has been on yet another attempt to repeal Obamacare andon hurricane relief for Irma and Maria. (Let's take it as read that the Idiot-in-Chief has been spouting drivel about various topics and edging us towards nuclear war….)

How has your week been?

Housekeeping (the usual stuff)Reminder that we have a suggestion post if there’s a topic that you’d like to see discussed but would like to ask the mods to look into. This can be anything from general information, or a how-to-do-a-thing, or something you may want to discuss as a community. Folks are welcome to post directly to the comm as always, but if you’re not comfortable/don’t have spoons, we can help too.

As we don't always get the time to pull things out of the suggestions post into their own separate posts, it may be worth checking every week (or tracking the post) to see if there's any new information you're interested in.

Also if you need help with tags, PM redbird, who is our tag guru. Both tassosss and I are very grateful for the help.

Sidetracks is a collaborative project featuring various essays, videos, reviews, or other Internet content that we want to share with each other. All past and current links for the Sidetracks project can be found in our Sidetracks tag. For more links and commentary you can follow us on Twitter, Tumblr. You can also support us on Patreon.

There is a problem with the CSV for Trick or Treat. I can't download it. For those who don't know, AO3 generates a spreadsheet with all the sign-ups that mods can access. The people waiting to make spreadsheets of the AO3 sign-ups have been waiting for it. I have been in contact with AO3 support but it sounds like this might not be fixable in time for this exchange.

To help out, and ensure that those that didn't post letters can be easily searched for as well, I made a google doc with all the sign-ups on the AO3 side. This was done fast and quick. It does not contain any letter links. I have allowed commenting so that people can add links to their letters and any others that they know of. Don't abuse the commenting or I will turn it off.

I am a bit rushed right now, so the livejournal post will go up later.

Feel free to use this in whatever way you want for making any other documents to help participants.

EDIT: I have good news and bad news. So the underlying issue is still unknown. However, an AO3 database person was able to get me the CSV file and it was emailed to me. I will be sending it to the people that requested it for working on spreadsheets with the emails and offers removed. The bad news is that it did some pretty funky stuff to some of the tags.

We have one open pinch hit currently open at Crossovering (a crossover fic/art exchange).

Requests are:

Crossover/Fic: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, GLOW (2017)

Crossover/Fic: Harlots (TV), Galavant (TV)

Crossover/Fic: Superstore (TV), Selfie (TV)

Crossover/Fic: Riverdale (TV 2017), Game of Thrones (TV)

Crossover/Fic: The Good Place (TV), You're The Worst (TV)

You can view the full request with details at the Google group here. Please reply at the group or e-mail the mods at crossoveringmods@gmail.com if you are interested. (Please put Pinch Hit #007 in your subject line). Thank you!

By way of making a dramatic entry, this seems to have been timed to co-ordinate with the announcement of their epic undercover project: Patrik Hermansson, an extremely brave young Swedish grad student, infiltrated the alt-right and lived undercover in the movement in London and the US for nearly a year, wired for sound and carrying hidden cameras. This ultimately included being at Charlottesville and witnessing the car attack that killed Heather Heyer.

The documentary is coming soon, and the comprehensive report on the international alt-right (for which the infiltration was part of the research) is here:

I love HnH; I've supported them for years and have friends who've volunteered for them. They have a long history working against fascist and far right groups in the UK, through research, infiltration, legal action, anti-racist/xenophobic education and campaigning, and their work seems to have naturally become international as the "alt-right" itself has (e.g. with the "Defend Europe" boat).

So I think their expertise (and the willingness of their reporters to put their necks on the line like this, holy fuck) is going to be a hugely valuable resource for people fighting this shit in the US too.

SPIKE: Um ... there's something I got to tell you. About showing you Riley in that place.
SPIKE: I didn't mean to ... (long pause) Anyway, I know you're feeling all betrayed -- by him, not me.
SPIKE: I was trying to help, you know. Not like I made him be there, after all. Actually trying to help you. Best intentions.
SPIKE: I mean, you know, pretty state you'd be in, thinking things are all right while he's toddling halfway round the bend.
SPIKE: Oh, I'll insult him if I want to! I'm the one who's on your side! Me! Doing you a favor! (And you, being dead petty about it -- me, getting nothing but your hatred and your venom and - you ungrateful bitch!
SPIKE: Bitch!
SPIKE: Buffy ... there's something I wanted to tell you.

The GOP is trying to repeal the ACA and cut Medicaid again. They almost have the votes to do it. We have the chance to stop them from getting the votes, if we act *right now*. We need to put overwhelming pressure on every senator to vote no.

Summary of the current situation, who to contact, and an excellent script for phone calls/e-mails from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.

All pinch hits will be posted to this group. As well as put in the comments of this post. You can email me at halloweenmod@gmail.com, comment on this post, PM me, or contact me any other way you can to claim. Make sure you include your AO3 account name. You don't need to be signed up to claim.

The sign-ups glows white on the computer tonightNot a pinch hit to be seen.A kingdom of tags and offers,and it looks like I'm PumpkinKingThe AO3 is howling cause Yuletide's also running nowCouldn't leave them open;Heaven knows it's timeDon't leave it open,don't let them seeBe the good mod you always have to beHit close, don't feel,don't let them knowWell now they knowClose sign-ups, close sign-upsCan't wait for it anymoreClose sign-ups, close sign-upsTurn away and slam the doorI don't careif they're a pinch hitLet AO3 match them.Being a pinch hit never bothered me anyway

I always go into Hugo voting with the best of intentions. I'm going to read all the things, view all the things, and not just get bogged down in the Novel category. 2017 is going to be different!

Yes. Well.

Appropriately for the Hugo Awards this optimistic view proved to be, as usual, pure fantasy. Still, I did pretty well for a lady with a long commute and limited data; particularly when it came to the Best Short Story category. I read four of the six stories nominated in this category for 2017. And what better way to get back into writing than to share all my thoughts with you?